And it’s Kelly, the man who has turned around the fortunes at Notre Dame in three seasons, who knows a little something about the quarterback position. The man who, at every coaching stop, has a history of winning with multiple players at the position; with playing the hot hand and never once thinking about someone’s ego or another guy’s feelings or how it will look to high school recruits.

Brian Kelly’s job is to win. He did it with Dan LeFevour at Central Michigan and won a championship. Did it with Tony Pike and Dustin Grutza and Chazz Anderson—all in one season—and led Cincinnati to the Orange Bowl.

He did it a year later with Pike and Zach Collaros and led the Bearcats to an unbeaten regular season. For the love of all things Grotto, he did it last year with Golson and Rees and had the Irish in the BCS National Championship Game.

Do you really think he can’t do it again now that Golson has been dismissed from school?

Look, as a runner, Golson was a helluva thrower. A quarterback who, in his first season as a starter, played his worst in big games and was saved by a nasty defense.

In five games against ranked teams, Golson completed 50 percent of his passes (63-of-125) for 796 yards (159 ypg), with three touchdowns and three interceptions. He also had 35 carries for 105 yards (3 ypc) and three touchdowns.

And suddenly, Notre Dame will be devastated by the loss of Golson?

Notre Dame’s best quarterback, its best pure thrower, was on its bench all along—but Kelly knew he had that stout defense and knew he only needed so much offense. Golson gave him that extra run threat defenses had to account for, a tantalizing and too often mesmerizing possibility that blinds too many coaches all too often.

So now Kelly goes back to what he does best: running his offense with a power run game and the ability to throw downfield—with accuracy—with Rees. In all fairness, Rees never should have lost the starting job last year.

He has never had a full season where the job is his, where there’s nothing or no one pressing him to perform or else. He was thrown into the fire as a freshman, went back and forth early on as a sophomore with Dayne Crist, and has been inconsistent much of his career.

Those 24 career interceptions (against 34 touchdowns) are a big number and can’t be ignored—but they’re also part of the growth process. The fact that Rees’ growth had mitigating factors every season didn’t help things.

Any coach at any level will tell you the two most important factors for a quarterback are ball security and accuracy. Rees completed 61 percent of his passes as a true freshman, and then 65 percent as a sophomore.

There’s no reason to think that number wouldn’t have improved last year had he started, but it dipped to 57 percent last year as a part-time reliever. Then there are the interceptions—which, for the most part, are about poor decisions.

Good decision-making, meanwhile, is fueled by good coaching and repetitions and understanding defenses. So your choice comes down to this:

Golson, who consistently struggled as a thrower in 2012, developing into more of a passing threat to help the Irish offense protect a rebuilt defense. Or Rees, a true threat as a thrower, learning to make better decisions in his fourth year with Kelly.